My Heart Exploded

It did. My heart EXPLODED. It started out so dark and ugly. All mixed together. What I meant to be rainbows turned into meaningless, gray matter. I almost lost hope. I’ve come to a sobering realization. It’s more painful to let myself play and create than to recall a horrible experience. What is that all about? Emptying the clogged drain. Went to EMDR today. I really need to write about it, but my laptop is at the doctor until mid-week. I can’t stand typing on this dinosaur.

I guess therapy is like the Draino to my clogged soul. I see two therapists a week. I’ve never skipped out or used “my gramma died” as an excuse. It is so unlike me not to disappear. Poor gramma. She turns 89 tomorrow and she doesn’t know how many jams she’s gotten me through. I would never do such a thing anymore. Yet why do I still feel so culpable? So guilty? My EMDR therapist has me reading “The Body Bears The Burden.” BOY is that some fun-times. Fairy tale and romance novel reading. N-O-T. Ouch. It is heavy. Yet pertinent. All the little pachinko pieces are falling into place. I can see it now.

Today we did some work I have been avoiding. That “inner child” (she wants to say CRAP.) But when I really let myself go, my mind goes straight to visions of dances, paintings, colors, and light. Today I saw my 11 year old self. She was cowering under a table. Physically, my whole body was folded in like pancake batter. Head down, to the right. Crunched down as far as it will go. My ET asks me to describe the body sensations. It’s so fucking hard. The little girl hides under the table.

The woman I am today comes along. She’s painted in rainbow water colors, and flows, kind of like water. The little girl under the table is a moving wad of black crayon scribbles. She can change shapes to fit into the tiniest of cracks. Rainbow me reaches down to tell the little girl she’s there. “I’m here, sweetie. Want to come out from under there? You’re safe now.” The black crayon child cowers in the corner and tries to disappear. If she’s still enough, she’ll be mistaken for darkness. But a piece falls loose.

Rainbow woman waits patiently. She reaches down under the table, and takes the tiniest little shred of black crayon that the girl has extended. No words are exchanged.

The Rainbow woman stands and starts pulling at the crayon thread. She gathers more and more and more until a big ball of crayon markings has formed like a cloud. Only the crayon threads that rise above the table are not black, they are bright, brilliant colors. They fill the Rainbow woman’s heart as she takes a slow, deep breath in. Inhale color. Exhale black. Inhale rainbows. Exhale loneliness.

We are in Tree Pose. My body the trunk. The child fills me with her color. Our leaves turn into shades of pink, red, purple, yellow, orange, red and blue. We balance on our left foot and stretch our sunshine powered arms to the sky. Inner body bright. Shining light. The tree grows and the branches fan out for a magical display. The leaves rustle in the wind. They make a tiny whispering sound. We are here. And we are safe.

My therapist asks me if I am fully able to rescue the black crayon girl from underneath the table. No, I tell her. She’s stuck in between. In between what? Half of her body, the upper half, is above ground. She feels the sunlight on her face. She’s reaching for the stars. Where is the other half? The lower half is still down below. Stuck in the darkness. Kicking. But paralyzed.

“Do you think you can ask the girl to come all the way up?” She asks. At my silence, she questions, “Not yet?”

25 Responses to “My Heart Exploded”

Wow. You have done some incredible work. What a beautiful, fluid moment you shared here….thank you. I have a terrible relationship with my ‘inner child’ so it’s great to know that you are so close to being able to connect with you own (self).

“A distant day.” That makes complete and total sense. And I have such a hard time with inner self work too…avoid it at all costs…but it’s almost like the crack has been made and the spring from down below is leaking out. So I just go with it! Thanks for being here….
The Cockroach

I didn’t want to either. I had a hard enough time “feeling” like the little girl. There’s more to the session…I’ll try to detail tomorrow…This was how the session ended. When my EMDR therapist asked the adult me to go help the little me out I said no thanks. 🙂

Whenever my EMDR therapist asks me (cause she is usually watching me, with my eyes closed sitting across from her) “What are you noticing now?” She knows she’ll get the god’s honest truth. And if it’s a black scribble of moving crayons, that’s what it is! 🙂

You have an extremely unique and effective way with narration. You manage to take what could be tedious, dull, or difficult to retell (like therapy sessions) and share it in a way that’s…pretty. You have a gift. 🙂

What do you mean? I hope I didn’t bungle up what I was trying to say… I just meant that a simple retelling of a therapy session could be pretty…standard. But you manage to make it unique and interesting.

Silly! I meant it’s hard for me to hear anyone thinks I have something interesting to say. I had a “fight” with my therapist last week. Where she was trying to compliment me on the blue bird painting. I had my head down and my eyes closed and we went back and forth for 10 minutes, me crying, her saying LOOK AT ME…..

Your writing is so raw and visceral and I love reading things like this but always sorry to hear about other people’s struggles. At the same time, it’s so admirable and brave of you to share your story because we can all learn something from each other. Inner child work is so difficult but I’m glad you are becoming more able to take care of her.

[…] or if the timing was simply right. I told her about the EMDR session on Monday, where we faced the “inner child” stuff. UGH. And the panic attack of yesterday. It occurred to me that the last panic attack happened on a […]